New home, cat lost

scottkeen

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My dog and cat moved with me back to my condo in Virginia. I purposely kept my cat Kilia indoors (she's an indoor/outdoor cat) for 2.5 weeks so she would know this is home. After 2.5 weeks, I got her a collar and a tag with name and my contact info. She is also micro-chipped and registered on HomeAgain.

For the first 3 days, she was going in and out of the condo (I have a SureFlap micro-chip controlled cat door) just fine, going out for a few hours and coming home fine. Then this past Sunday night she went out and hasn't come home since.

I've reported her as "lost" to HomeAgain, who is supposed to notify the vets and animal shelters about this.

I've put up flyers in my condo development with her picture.

When I walk the dog, I call her name in the voice that she usually responds to.

I even told Ruger the GSD to go find Kilia but he just runs around in circles and gives me a stick.

What else can I do?

Is it normal for an indoor/outdoor cat in a new home to explore for a few days?
 

Norachan

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Hi @scottkeen  The same kind of thing happened to my cat Mia after I moved, We'd been in our new place for a month and she had an outdoor enclosure, but managed to get out of it. She was gone for over three weeks, but I found her less than a mile form here. It could be that Kilia wandered a bit further than usual and isn't sure how to get back. You could try sprinkling her used cat litter around your house so she can smell her way home again.

Ask neighbours to check their sheds and garages in case she got locked in somewhere.

The best time to look for her is late at night, between the hours of midnight and dawn when there are less people about and cats are at their most active. Cats tend to move in circles rather than straight lines, so make bigger and bigger circles out from your house, calling her name softly or shaking a can of treats or doing whatever you usually do to get her to come to you. 

Good luck, I hope she comes home soon.
 
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scottkeen

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Thanks @Norachan  . I was going to set her litter box (still with poop in it) outside the front door.

This is a 3-story condo complex, the units don't have garages or sheds. There's lots of wooded areas around it, so she may have gone exploring.

I'll put her litter box outside, and I'll also try your suggestion of looking for her late at night. She's very skittish, quite a fraidy-cat so I'm sure during the day she's found a place to lay low and hide. My biggest concern is that a fox might have gotten her or she got hit by a car on the main road. She's micro-chipped and registered with HomeAgain and has a collar with nametag, so I'm not sure what the road workers do when they find dead cats in the road.

Going now to set out the cat litter box...
 

Norachan

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Thanks @Norachan  . I was going to set her litter box (still with poop in it) outside the front door.

This is a 3-story condo complex, the units don't have garages or sheds. There's lots of wooded areas around it, so she may have gone exploring.

I'll put her litter box outside, and I'll also try your suggestion of looking for her late at night. She's very skittish, quite a fraidy-cat so I'm sure during the day she's found a place to lay low and hide. My biggest concern is that a fox might have gotten her or she got hit by a car on the main road. She's micro-chipped and registered with HomeAgain and has a collar with nametag, so I'm not sure what the road workers do when they find dead cats in the road.

Going now to set out the cat litter box...
I'm not sure what it's like in the US, but in the UK and Japan they keep records of cats picked up from the road. Maybe you could try calling your local town hall (Or US equivalent) and ask if they keep records?

Another good trick is to take the dust from your vacuum cleaner bag and sprinkle that around your building so it smells like home.

If people complain about the cat litter box outside you could sprinkle a little trail of cat litter around the building. They won't notice that but your cat will.
 
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scottkeen

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Maybe the cat litter idea worked...

Kilia is home now! She came home on her own. Thank you all for your help.
 
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